The Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show is one of the oldest sporting events in modern history. Held annually in New York City, thousands of dogs across hundreds of breeds compete for the title 'Best in Show', with tens of thousands of attendees. Millions more tune in online and on-air, live from Piers 92 & 94 and Madison Square Garden on FS1, Fox Sports Go and Nat Geo Wild.
Challenged with an aging audience and antiquated communication strategies, in 2017 GLOW and Westminster set out to modernize the communication flow and ignite fan engagement in order to reach a younger fan base globally without isolating the traditional core demographic. Over the course of Westminster Week, February 11-15, our goals were to build brand, event, ticket and broadcast awareness while increasing user engagement with Westminster's social accounts.
GLOW and Westminster developed and executed a comprehensive strategy to extend this prestigious live event on a global scale. In order to keep social content relevant to what was happening in real-time, we served viewers and fans content and information they desired, and above all made sure to showcase the event's true stars, the dogs.
Throughout Westminster Week, we produced real-time social-first content such as interactive Facebook Live voting polls, Instagram Stories, and custom videos. On-the-ground social coverage included highlighting the top dogs fans were already cheering for and breeds that users vocalized wanting to see.
Around-the-clock community management kept fans informed and engaged leading up to, throughout, and following the event. As the competition narrowed, we posted real-time judging results with custom social graphics. Distinct branding, through application of Westminster's iconic purple and gold, helped the outcomes stand out from the rest of what was happening in social and facilitated easy sharing of official updates.
It was critical that we aligned with the right partners throughout Westminster Week to build the show's awareness. This included partnerships with social influencers such as The Dogist, We Rate Dogs, Instagram NYC, amongst many others, garnering over 13MM potential impressions.
To extend the global reach of Westminster and speak to younger audiences, we partnered with Snapchat's editorial team to launch a featured Live Global Story. The branded story was curated by content creators and show attendees, featuring custom Westminster geofilters and available for all to view on the platform for 24 hours.
Westminster was one of the first brands to partner with Giphy on their new Giphy Frame social booth. The booth allowed show exhibitors and spectators to create a digital souvenir at the event to be shared on their personal social profiles. All social booth fan GIFs were featured in a branded Westminster Giphy page accompanying over 200 show GIFs created by the GLOW and Giphy teams.
GLOW and Westminster continued to bring the event to life to viewers at home by working hand-in-hand with Fox Sports. This included an on-air broadcast from Westminster's first social correspondent, Katie Nolan, discussing Westminster social feeds and show trends.
The 2017 Westminster Week garnered massive social results in just five days, including.
